On the Banks of the Black Horse Pike

It was already cloudy and dreary when I got up this morning. I wasn't even going to attempt any running around. I slept in, watched more Danger Mouse, and went on the computer to do some writing work and editing.

The computer is giving me trouble. For some reason, AVG won't run at all, and it keeps giving me a lot of weird boxes. It won't let Start run, either. I push it, and it won't come up. I think it's something to do with bugs in the recent updates for AVG and Windows XP. I just updated both not long ago. I'll see if uninstalling AVG later tonight helps.

When I looked out my window around 1:30, I got a distinct feeling of deja-vu. It was thundering and storming and pouring something awful. Last year, I tried to call Dad for a ride to work during a similar storm, only to discover he couldn't get through flood water on West Clinton Avenue. I walked and was a half-hour late.

I wasn't going to do that again. This time, I just had a quick lunch, put the bag with my dinner in plastic, threw on my blue rain coat, and headed out on my bike. I did the right thing. Flood waters were so high at quarter after 2, the Black Horse Pike at the entrance to Audubon Park was one massive puddle. Traffic was backed up for miles. Since the rain had stopped by then, I just took off my shoes and socks, dumped them in the bike basket, and walked over the hills and around the water. The rain was just starting up again as I arrived at work.

It rained on and off for the rest of the night. The traffic stayed bad, too, if the complaining my customers did all evening was any indication. I was more worried about how a lot of my co-workers would get out of the parking lot in that mess than how I'd get home.

The Acme wasn't in great shape when I arrived, either. From what I've gathered, the store was built on swampland, and water seeps through Aisle 1 whenever there's an especially bad storm...like this afternoon. Thank goodness, the rain we had the rest of the day was more like a normal summer shower, which caused no further problems. It was mildly steady when I finally came in (ten minutes late, but that's better than thirty). When I headed home at 8:30, it was so dead, I spent most of the last hour doing returns.